


we are antivenom

by Sour_Idealist



Series: Pax Heterodyne [1]
Category: Girl Genius
Genre: Canon-Typical Bugs, Canon-Typical Violence, Future Fic, Speculatively Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-15
Updated: 2015-04-15
Packaged: 2018-03-23 01:33:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3750001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sour_Idealist/pseuds/Sour_Idealist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tourists still come to Mechanicsburg, after.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we are antivenom

Because Mechanicsburg always had a talent for the dramatic, people started calling it the Purification very quickly.

Gil and Agatha and Tarvek never did. They never called it anything, really – there was a certain way of saying _then_ or _that time_ that meant those stretching, miserable thirty hours when they sat in the middle of a battle and pulled the poison and the impact of four starved years from Tarvek’s body; where they finally beat the half-constructed ghost of Klaus out of Gil’s mind; where, finally, Agatha clenched her teeth and unfastened her locket and burned every trace of the Other and the Mongfishes' particular madness out of her heart.

Somebody painted it within the week: Agatha standing on the husk of a clank, cobbled-together megaphone in hand, roaring “I am Agatha the Heterodyne, the Holy Child, heir to the Goddess that I just killed, and every revenant and wasp on this field is going to die unless they _KNEEL!_ ”

The battle all went quiet then, although historians agree that the turning point was when Agatha growled, “Now, slavers – _release your hosts,_ ” and insects started crawling from the mouths and noses of those they’d ridden, dropping dead between their knees.

It was disgusting, yes. But it sent a message.

Bohrlaika had stood back as Gil waved the Wulfenbach forces to stand down. Lucrezia’s last ghost, in Anevka, had fled as her armies flocked to Agatha in horror and relief. Tarvek, planting himself on what was suddenly the winning side, had become the primary candidate for the Storm King title very quickly indeed. And Martellus, having learned a thing or two in his time, had quietly chained himself to a post outside Agatha’s tent and prepared a very short (and relatively successful) plea for her mercy.

And now, Mechanicsburg was the center of Europa.

“Dey is callink it the Heterodyne’s Peace,” one Jäger said to another outside a sausage-stand. “Now dere’s a sentence that just don’t fit right in de mouth.”

“I heard it was the Trifold Pact,” the sausage vendor said, straightening her hair. “I like the other one better, me. The Lady Agatha might as well get credit, I say.”

“Hyu ask me,” the blond Jäger said, leaning against the booth, “dey should call it an awful lot of mopping up. Speaking hof…” And he vanished into the crowd. The first Jäger blinked twice, looked around, and stamped his foot hard enough to crack a cobblestone.

“Damn!” he said. “The Schneaky General again. One hoff these days, Hy swear, Hy will _catch_ him…”

In one of the halls of the Castle, which although technically repaired was very far from livable, Violetta was hanging upside-down from a rafter and grumbling. “A nice party and a pretty dress!” she grumbled. “What good’s a pretty dress if I’m never going to get a chance to wear it? And I don’t think nobility are supposed to throw _work_ parties…”

Agatha had been introduced to the idea of barn-raising and church-cleaning parties even before she started showing the Spark the first time, and had applied the idea ruthlessly. Each month, most of Mechanicsburg found itself showing up flushed and flattered to help clean those parts of the Castle that could be cleaned up with some long-handled mops, leather coats, and helpful backup pocketwatch-clanks. People might have objected, except that Agatha threw similar parties for the walls and the markets, she made sure there were towering piles of fried snails and cake, and she was always elbow-deep in the grimiest work, chatting as she did it.  

Violetta unfastened another fairly lethal trap from her rafter, dropping the non-poisonous materials into a bucket held by Moloch. “I might have _known,_ ” she growled. “I’m sure this is all Tarvek’s fault somehow!”

“Um.” Moloch coughed. “I think what you have on is pretty?”

Violetta wavered almost a millimeter to the right, which was the Smoke Knight equivalent of falling off the beam in surprise.

In one of the old red zones, Agatha was elbow-deep in the wall and clicking her tongue in solid disapproval. “Thisis _old,_ this kind of rust doesn’t build up over less than fifty years, what were my parents _doing?_ ”

“Um, Lady Heterodyne...” Von Mekkhan coughed. “I have a diplomatic message here… from… I’ll just read it to you, shall I?”

“Oh, that would be excellent,” Agatha said, spreading herself out along the floor. “This isn’t that complicated, really, but it does sort of need… both… aha!”

Von Mekkhan sighed and read out the letter from the Master of Paris while Agatha lay back on the floor and tinkered.

Tourists still came to Mechanicsburg, much to everyone’s surprise. True, they were fewer and more nervous, but only a few the inns and overpriced food stands had had to close their doors. People wanted to see the pruned-back remnants of the great thorn hedge, the inch-wide scratches in the Great Square that took an hour to step over, the burnt-out husk of the Great Hospital and the bristling half-built defenses that would safeguard its reconstruction. They wanted to see the place where the Storm King and the Baron’s Heir tidied up their empires until they were fit to give away.

“It’s still good money, at least,” a seller of trilobite jewelry remarked to a hawker of pocketwatch-clank statuettes, leaning on the side of the latter’s cart. “Damned if I wanted to learn a new trade around here, anyway.”

Across the street from them, two of the tourists strolled arm-in-arm, the husband adorned with a trilobite watch-chain. What had arrested the wife’s attention, however, was not the snail-sausage booth or the pamphlets promising the True Secrets of Mechanicsburg; it was the apartment window, above a curiosity shop, with a For Rent sign pasted to the panes.

“You know, love,” she said, smoothing a hand over the swollen curve of her belly, “maybe after your contract runs down…”

“Really?” he asked, moustache quivering. “In _Mechanicsburg_?”

She ducked her head, brown cheeks darkening. “I know, it sounds mad,” she said, “but, well… look at this place!”

He glanced down the alleyway, still scorched from the war, and raised his eyebrows. She sighed.

“I know, I know, but it feels... hopeful _,_ here,” she said. “I think that’s more important than I realized.”

Slowly, he looked down the streets of Mechanicsburg, at the running laughing children playing at being Sparks and heroes, and looked back to his wife. “Come to think of it,” he said, “perhaps. Perhaps it is.”

 _Well,_ the Castle thought, listening to them. Once it would have dropped them on their backsides or introduced them to a vampiric pigeon, just for fun, but now the Mistress would hardly approve. It supposed she could always use more minions calling her town home.

Mechanicsburg… hopeful. It was certainly new, and it seemed surprisingly unlikely to be boring.


End file.
